The experience: A Jeep that carries you back into daylight

The trick: Building a heretofore unknown ride cart called an EMV

Image via Flickr user Loren Javier
Image: Flickr (license)

The key to the greatness of Indiana Jones Adventure isn’t any of the amazing features thus far, though. Instead, it’s a ride cart that Imagineers created especially for this attraction.

You already understand the challenges that Disney cast members faced. They had to carry theme park tourists through a giant area covering three floors and tens of thousands of square feet. In the process, they needed a vehicle that accentuated the precarious situation that the riders faced. They were in an abandoned temple and fleeing from an enraged deity, after all.

Disney didn’t have this technology available yet, but they did have a kernel of it. Imagineers were always proud of the gimbal-based design of Star Tours. The pivoted support gave the ride unprecedented mobility and the ability to shake riders such that they could “feel” the events happening onscreen. This type of motion simulation was new at the time, and the designers of Indiana Jones deduced that they could use it as the basis for something new.

Image via Flickr user Loren Javier
Image: Flickr (license)

Enter the Enhanced Motion Vehicle.

Indiana Jones Adventure has a Jeep, only it’s not the type of Jeep that you could buy at a store. It’s a marvel of engineering that needed several new patents to create. The entire vehicle is a motion simulator, and it can bounce your seat whenever the action dictates an action. When you ride across a creaky bridge, the EMV shakes you so that you appreciate the peril of your predicament.

The technology of the EMV was so revolutionary for the time that Disney had to build a special test track to test it. They were understandably nervous about testing an original ride cart on the unsuspecting public. After all, there’s a lot that can go wrong. Each EMV is self-sufficient. It has 480 volts of energy to power the vehicle (Disney didn’t want an entire fleet of gas-powered vehicles, after all). It also has a durable chassis and actuators that can move the cart in three distinct thrust planes (x, y, and z) and with three different rotational axes (pitch, roll, and yaw). The Disney Jeep seems like it powers the riders at a hefty velocity, but it actually only goes 14 miles per hour. It seems like more due to the bumpy experience and scary supernatural stuff happening all around you.

Image via Flickr user Loren Javier
Image: Flickr (license)

Disney loved the EMV so much that they used the same technology again for Dinosaur, an Animal Kingdom attraction that uses similar structure. An explorer travels back in time to visit the age of the dinosaurs, only to realize that a comet’s about to strike.

Dinosaur opened only three years after Indiana Jones Adventure. Its existence speaks to a rare amount of pride that Imagineers felt about their creation of the EMV. It really is amazing tech. Some rides (mainly at Universal Studios) have a sedentary cart that rocks back and forth but doesn’t go anywhere. At Indiana Jones Adventure, the motion simulation is internal, not external. Your seat shakes you until you believe that you are in mortal danger at a forbidden temple.

Indiana Jones Adventure is quietly one of the most influential theme park attractions of the past 30 years. Its impact on motion simulation, ride design, and line queue techniques has revolutionized the industry. The next time you ride it, take a moment to appreciate its influence on Dinosaur, Expedition Everest, Avatar Flight of Passage, and like 15 rides at Universal Studios. It was the precursor to the modern motion simulation style that so popular today.

Image via Flickr user Loren Javier
Image: Flickr (license)